As is well known to personnel operating airlines and passengers of same, business travel on commercial airlines in the United States has increased dramatically in the last few decades. A great deal of air travel is accomplished by business people on short trips, of a few days duration. As air carriers in the U.S.A. have added more and more flights, the incidents of late arrivals of aircraft and disruption of commercial air schedules have become more common. In particular, as schedule air traffic becomes so heavy, the response of the system to circumstances requiring a slow down, for example inclement weather at a major airport hub, causes greater and greater delays.
Furthermore, modem commercial jet aircraft have relatively generous storage space, both in overhead compartments and under passenger seats within the interior of the fuselage. In response to all of these factors, as well as to avoid delays inherent with retrieving baggage from a baggage claim in many modern airports, business travelers on short trips have made it a prevalent practice to carry all their clothing needed for a particular trip into the interior of an aircraft cabin in what is generally referred to as some form of carryon luggage. The inventor of the present invention was also the inventor of one of the most successful original carryon suitcases that also included integral wheels and a handle allowing it to be rolled on planer surfaces between gates, and when traveling from the airport to one's vehicle. This type of luggage is disclosed in applicant's issued U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,487. Such luggage is very convenient to use and carry aboard an airplane, and has a relatively high volume of storage space. In spite of the increase in availability of storage space in general, business travelers are familiar with the limitations that result from the design of current luggage and the constraints of commercial aircraft design with respect to successfully carrying suits, dresses, and other finer clothing garments that are normally stored on hangers in a manner that does not cause same to become wrinkled or crumpled during transport on an aircraft. While it is generally recognized that a full length garment bag is the most effective mechanism in the prior art for avoiding wrinkling of hanging clothes, storage of same requires either the use of part of the limited hanging closet space on a commercial aircraft or folding of the bag for storage in an overhead compartment or under the seat. The latter option, naturally, often defeats the benefits of use of a full length bag. In response to this, some folding garment bags, with compartments for shirts, socks, and other articles of clothing, have been developed and become relatively popular in the U.S.A. in recent years.
However, such luggage still represents an essential compromise between the goal of wrinkle-free transportation of fine articles of clothing and the ability to carry one's luggage into the cabin of an airplane.
It is also known in the prior art of luggage to incorporate apparatus for holding coat hangers on at least one interior wall of a hard sided relatively large suitcase so that most suits, dresses, and the like can be stored in the suitcase on a hanger, folded once. Furthermore, some suitcases have included a panel that has a thick wire frame on the perimeter for laying on top of the portion of hanging clothing that lays within the interior well of one side of such a suitcase. In typical usage, the parts of the hanging clothes that hang below the lower edge of such a panel are folded over the wire edge of the panel and then other clothing may be inserted. It is also known to include a selectively closeable flap for holding the packed assembly in the interior well of one side of the suitcase so that all the clothing articles do not fall out when the suitcase is opened. So far as is known to the inventor, this represents the best achievement of minimum wrinkling of folded hanging clothing in suitcases in the prior art. Such suitcases have been of relatively large size, and are not suited for carryon luggage. Furthermore, while a proper arrangement using such a suitcase can lead to top and bottom portions of the hanging clothes that are relatively uncrumpled, experience shows that such an arrangement tends to put a crumpled crease in the clothing at the point at which it is folded about the wire of the panel, or simply folded on top of itself.
The art has, before development of the present invention, not included a suitcase that is sized to be usable as carryon luggage in commercial airplanes in the United States of America and in which hanging clothes, such as men's business suits, can be stored on a hanger and folded in a manner that will not cause crumpling and wrinkling of same.